Canberra, Australia
Australia clinched a deal this week to supply China with uranium for nuclear power plants. The deal is worth billions of dollars a year to Australia, which is home to 40 percent of the world’s supply of uranium ore but has no nuclear reactors of its own. But Australian opposition parties were critical of the sale, saying the yellowcake might end up in Chinese nuclear bombs. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said “strict safeguards” were in place to prevent such diversion. But he added: “China has a nuclear weapons program whether we like it or not. It’s not going to make the slightest difference whether we have this agreement with China or whether we don’t to their nuclear weapons program.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How will China’s $1 trillion trade surplus change the world economy?Today’s Big Question Europe may impose its own tariffs
-
‘Autarky and nostalgia aren’t cure-alls’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Japan’s Princess Aiko is a national star. Her fans want even more.IN THE SPOTLIGHT Fresh off her first solo state visit to Laos, Princess Aiko has become the face of a Japanese royal family facing 21st-century obsolescence
